


Ustulare

by thaliaarche



Series: Elegiac Couplet [3]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Blue Sect Arc, Catullus' Poetry, Chapter 122 Spoilers, Dialogue, Inspired by Poetry, Latin, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 18:07:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8926948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thaliaarche/pseuds/thaliaarche
Summary: Sebastian Michaelis comes to terms with his feelings for Ciel, yet he refuses to speak his mind openly. Instead, he writes a song called "Phantom Knight" that, in his opinion, elegantly and provocatively articulates his fascination with his master.Ciel reviews the lyrics.Reading the prior stories (especially part one, Excidere) would be helpful though perhaps not required.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired in part by this meta post on tumblr: http://littlebratciel.tumblr.com/post/153694184938/sebastians-song

Love is a precipice to be avoided, Ciel Phantomhive knows. After his stumble at Weston College, surely he pulled himself from the brink?

\---

Strains of the Funtom 5’s newest songs echo through the music hall, now mechanically amplified. Ciel and Sebastian hear the music even through the oaken door of the upstairs study, where they review programs and sales reports and account books as the concert takes place below.

“I must commend you— the new choreography works well,” Ciel observes as he flips through last night’s box office records. “Customers specifically mention looking forward to the ‘flying jigamarig.’” He laughs.

“It is fortunate I was able to convince even our most timid performers to jump.”

“You have a talent for that, it seems.”

“Oh?”

"Merchandise.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The records for merchandise transactions, please.” Ciel stretches out his hand, and Sebastian presents the papers with a flourish. “Hmph. I thought that giving those glowing rods out for free would hurt other products’ sales, but that worry has so far proven unfounded. Your instinct was more accurate than mine, in this case at least.”

Sebastian places one hand over his chest and bows. “I am most honored, my lord.”

“Really—” Ciel pauses— “so many of your innovations have benefited this hall. The blocked-off seats, the new-fangled sound amplifiers, the orchestration, the choreography, the themed merchandise . . . They provide a truly magical experience.” Though he stares down at the sheets, black hair veiling his face, Sebastian can see a shy smile playing his lips.

“I suppose I must thank you for your . . .  uncharacteristically kind words.”

“You’ve done an uncharacteristically good job.”

Sebastian chuckles at the insult, softened by Ciel’s surprisingly pleasant expression. “To the contrary, I have simply provided my usual level of service.”

“Really? Has your attitude towards your duties in no way changed since the Funtom Five took the stage?”

Silence. Then— “I notice, young master, that your enumeration of my recent accomplishments omitted the most important element of a vocal performance.”

“The lyrics?”

“Indeed.”

“I did notice the new lyrics, of course,” Ciel murmurs. “‘Phantom Knight's verses are truly remarkable. I must ask— did you have any particular inspiration in mind when you wrote them?”

Relishing the hunt, the demon decides to prolong this game by just a moment. “Johann.”

“What?” Ciel snaps, though his smile returns in a blink.

“Is that such a surprise?”

He pouts. “I never thought human sweetness matched your idea of a ‘sweet, sweet aroma.’”

“They are not quite equivalent concepts, true.”

“And given how Johann’s now flirting shamelessly with all his fellow performers while you watch with light amusement, I can’t envision you chasing him until you devour him.”

“I am flattered to hear that you watch me so closely.”

“And though he sings of night skies,” Ciel continues, “I doubt you’d look to him for real ‘darkness to swallow.’ Tell me, Sebastian. What was the true inspiration for this song?”

He relents: “Johann inspired me to be honest.”

“About?”

“About you.”

“So you’ve now decided to flaunt your demonic nature before the crowds of England? Not the wisest choice . . .”

“I suppose the crowds were not the audience I had in mind.”

“Then who was?” Ciel asks, nearly breathless, eyes fixed on the calculations without seeing a single number.

“Don’t you already know, young master?” Ciel’s gaze flickers up as Sebastian’s voice rumbles, deep and soft. “Tell me, what did _you_ think of my lyrics?”

He leans back into his leather chair and licks his lips, now on the verge of winning his prize. Music from below filters through the door: “You’re the prey for me . . .”

Sweet smile turning saccharine, Ciel answers, “ _Cacata carta_.”

Sebastian’s eyes flash, and he shoots to his feet. “I beg your pardon?”

“Beg all you like, you won’t get it for this chaotic heap of—”

“‘Soiled toilet paper?’”

“I thought the Latin was more explicit.” He curls his lip, dropping his honeyed facade. “Or perhaps I’m wrong, Professor Michaelis?”

“What, may I ask—” he turns and strides to the window, coattails flying behind him— “earned my lyrics such a poor estimation?”

“Where shall I start?” Ciel asks smugly. “With the shamelessly self-promoting title? The rustic rhymes? The hackneyed rhythms? Your utter inability to convey monstrosity?”

Sebastian scoffs. “How could I, one hell of a butler, ever be unable to convey monstrosity . . .”

“‘I’ll bite the night, black as jet. I’ll rip away your shame and regret,’ Ciel recites in singsong. “Does that strike you as the work of a master poet?”

“It . . . could perhaps use some refinement, but the crowds—”

“Are not your audience, are they? But even they aren’t fascinated by your song, Sebastian. By your choreography, your lighting, your crashing orchestration, yes. But your lyrics grasp at bloody significance and turn out safe, tame . . . artificial. Nobody’s excited until Soma starts swinging his little napkin.”

He spins around to face Ciel again. “Perhaps I am doomed to deal in artifice.”

“Of course you are,” he snorts, “which is why this attempt at lyrical ‘honesty’ was a fool’s errand. Let’s call a spade a spade, Sebastian. You wrote me a song that tells me nothing you haven’t said five hundred times before, about chasing me and devouring me, etc. etc. In your mind, this is a grand revelation somehow inspired by Johann, yet I can find nothing remotely original in the whole of the text.”

“Nothing?” Sebastian raises an eyebrow. “Not a single line?”

Ciel widens his eyes at that. “Perhaps a single line.”

“I am pleased to hear it,” he replies.

“But I regret to inform you that the only ‘virgin’ you will ‘strip naked’ is yourself.”

Sebastian stops still. After a moment, he smiles slyly and says, “Is that so, young master?”

“You have never been taken in this form, have you?”

“I have not, young master.”

“And Nina wants to strip you and stuff you in that new outfit she’s designed, doesn’t she?”

Silence. At last— “Yes, young master.”

“There we are, then,” Ciel concludes, finishing with the papers and slapping them back onto the table. “If this bumbling attempt at poetry is the only game you can provide me, I do not care to play.”

“I understand, young master.”

“Do you?” Ciel raises an eyebrow, curious.

“If I may ask, do you object only to the song, or to the sentiment that may lie underneath?”

“You don’t understand, then,” the earl muses, his expression strikingly like pity. “I’ve already answered that question, Sebastian— and as for this song . . . You can burn it in the fires of Hell, as far as I care.”

\---

Thanks to Ciel’s expressions, his posturing, and the gleeful vengeful smirk he normally reserves for the most distasteful of criminals, Sebastian recognizes this verbal assault as a well-planned punishment. He crushed Ciel’s pride, if not also his heart, when the boy betrayed weakness and presented his sentimental interpretation of that Propertius poem, back at Weston. And so, when Sebastian showed a form of weakness of his own through this— admittedly slightly inelegant— poem and naively expected his master to joyously confess his own love at once, Ciel crushed him in return.

Still, Sebastian senses another layer in this particular battle of wits, in the strange gentleness Ciel exhibited at the end. And though Sebastian has lost this battle, they may yet both win the war.

“So what game _do_ you care to play, young master?”

When they finally finish with the music halls, Sebastian once again has time to slip away from his duties, and so he starts to scour every Latin book in the Manor’s considerable library. The sheer obscenity of "cacata carta" eliminates the epics, and many prose pieces besides—

Of course.

He stumbles across the words in a poem by Catullus, arguably the first elegist of Rome. Though this particular poem cannot be considered proper love elegy— it was not composed in the requisite elegiac couplets— it falls into the same vein, describing the turbulent affair of Catullus and his great love Lesbia:

 _Chronicles written by Volusius,_ cacata carta,  
_fulfill a promise on my sweetheart’s behalf._  
_For she swore to sacred Venus and to Cupid_  
_that, if I would be given back to her_  
_and would stop brandishing my savage iambic poems,_  
_she would give the choicest writings of the worst poet_  
_to Hephaestus, to be burned with luckless logs . . ._  
_So come into the fire, chronicles of Volusius,_  
_rustic and hackneyed,_ cacata carta.

Was this an insult poem directed at the author Volusius? A love poem devoted to Lesbia? In all likelihood, Sebastian reflects, Catullus wished that it might seem both romantic and offensive at once.

Sebastian glances at the sheet music he produced for the Funtom Five, now bound in a portfolio and tucked in a bookcase. Indeed, Ciel had dismissed his attempt at poetry as rustic and hackneyed, the worst of poetry, and he had bidden him to burn the frightful lyrics. In just this way, Lesbia bade Catullus to burn "cacata carta" as an offering of thanks, when the goddess of love led her own poet's wandering heart back to her . . .

Opening the portfolio, Sebastian pulls out "Phantom Knight." With a chuckle, he summons a flame with a snap of his fingers and then ignites the corner of the pages, watching the paper shrivel and melt to ash.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
